Rose Romano's poems deserve a prominent place in the Italian American literary canon. These poems helped shift the focus of Italian American writing from cultural nostalgia and a sense of loss toward the examination of consciousness of those feelings.
The finest poems of this oeuvre respond with ferocious satire to the whitewashing and the distortion of Italian American life not only by other Americans but by Italian Americans themselves.
Rose Romano’s poetry has defined a post-modern approach to both Italian American poetry and Italian American consciousness.
--George Guida, The Return of Rose Romano,
July 2019, Ygdrasil, Journal of the Poetic Arts, the first literary
journal to be published on the internet
Neither Seen nor Heard, Rose Romano's third book of poetry, includes all the poems from Vendetta and The Wop Factor (both published by malafemmina press) plus many poems published in various literary journals and a few published here for the first time.
Neither Seen nor Heard
is available from
iambooksboston.com
ISBN 9791220010610
Below is one of the poems
included.
Look for other poems from
the book on
malafemminapress.blogspot.com
Leave
it to the Italians
She told me she had been wearing
a t-shirt with the words--
I'm terrific--
over her left breast.
An Italian asked--
What's wrong with the other one?
Leave it to the Italians--
she said.
Was I just called a sex maniac
again?
Not at all!
She loves Italians!
I love bright yellow canaries
that sing in the morning.
I love soft fat puppies
with cold wet noses
and little round kittens
tangled in yarn.
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